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No column (possibly for a short while); we're still in information gathering mode, beep boop. 🤖
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Apple has been expanding its computing budget for building artificial intelligence to millions of dollars a day, says The Information.
In separate Apple news, China plans to expand a ban on the use of iPhones in sensitive departments to government-backed agencies and state companies, a sign of growing challenges for Apple in its biggest foreign market and global production base. Bloomberg has more here.
Huh. Flexport CEO Dave Clark is resigning from the supply chain software startup and handing the reins over to founder and executive chair Ryan Petersen after one year in the role — and after just six months of helming the company solo. In July, Flexport said Petersen would join Founders Fund, the venture capital fund founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. CNBC has more here.
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Ascend Elements, an eight-year-old startup based in Westborough, Ma., that is creating battery materials for EVs, raised a $460 million Series D round. Decarbonization Partners, Temasek, and Qatar Investment Authority co-led the deal. The company has raised a total of $1.4 billion. More here.
D-Matrix, a four-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, Ca., that designs chips that are optimized to help power generative AI applications such as ChatGPT, raised a $110 million Series B round led by Temasek, with Playground Global, Microsoft's M12, Samsung Ventures, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Entrada Ventures also investing.The company has raised a total of $154 million. Reuters has more here.
Inceptive, a four-year-old, Palo Alto-based biotech start-up founded by a former Google AI expert to develop new types of vaccines and drugs, has raised $100 million in funding from Nvidia and Andreessen Horowitz. The outfit is designing “biological software” using AI tech that was pioneered by founder Jakob Uszkoreit, who co-authored a paper that kickstarted generative AI advances such as ChatGPT, says the Financial Times. More here.
Mujin, a 12-year-old Tokyo company that is developing AI-based software for industrial automation, raised an $85 million Series C round led by SBI Investment, with Pegasus Tech Ventures and Accenture also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $150 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Nimbus Therapeutics, a 14-year-old company based in Cambridge, Ma., that is developing novel small molecule cancer drugs, raised a $210 million round. GV and previous investors SR One and Atlas Venture co-led the transaction. The company has raised a total of $637 million. FierceBiotech has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Ambient Photonics, a four-year-old startup based in Scotts Valley, Ca., that is developing low-light energy harvesting technology for solar cells, raised a $30 million Series A2 round led by Fine Structure Ventures, with Helios Climate Ventures, Regeneration.VC, Sustainable Future Ventures, and previous investors I Squared Capital, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, and Cthulhu Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $78.5 million. eeNews Power has more
here.
Arduino, an 18-year-old New York company that has built an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software for both consumers and enterprises, raised a $22 million Series B extension round co-led by CDP Venture Capital and Anzu Partners, increasing the total size of the round to $54 million. TechCrunch has more here.
GenTwo, a five-year-old ZĂĽrich startup that lets investors securitize assets such as real estate, fine art, or digital assets in the form of a bankable security, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Point72 Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.
Lumen Energy, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that helps commercial real estate owners evaluate their buildings and deploy clean energy technologies, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Ajax Strategies, with Lowercarbon, Designer Fund, Nuveen, and Bridge Investment Group also participating. Fortune has more here.
Lydian, a startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that produces sustainable fuels made from captured CO2 and renewable electricity, raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Congruent Ventures and Galvanize Climate Solutions, with Grok Ventures, Voyager Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Overture VC, and Overlap Holdings also joining in. More here.
Nuventura, a six-year-old Berlin startup that builds equipment that is used to control the flow of electricity in power grids that does not use SF6, a greenhouse gas, raised a $26.8 million Series A round led by Mirova, with Forward.one, EIC Accelerator and insiders IBB Ventures, ADB Ventures, Cycle Group, Future Energy Ventures, and DOEN Participaties also piling on. The company has raised a total of $32.7 million. Tech.eu has more here.
Paptic, an eight-year-old startup based in Espoo, Finland, that develops sustainable packaging materials, raised a $24.7 million Series A round led by European Circular Bioeconomy Fund, with Ecolab and Itochu Fibre also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $48.5 million. More here.
Rejuvenation Technologies, a seven-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that is seeking to reverse aging by lengthening telomeres, raised a $10.6 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with additional funds provided by Shanda Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Merchant Adventures, Longevity Tech Fund, and Y Combinator. Endpoints News has more here.
SkinnyDipped, a nine-year-old Seattle startup that makes chocolate-dipped nut snacks, raised a $12 million Series A round led by David Grutman and including Amy Schumer, Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Durant, and Post Malone. The company has raised a total of $35.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Story Protocol, a San Francisco startup that is making web3 tools for creators to enable capabilities such as provenance tracking, licensing, and revenue sharing, raised a $24.7 million tranche led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Hashed, Samsung Next, Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, Dao5, and Two Small Fish Ventures also taking part, increasing the total size of the round to $54 million. NFTgators has more here.
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Blooming Health, a three-year-old New York startup that says it uses AI to provide personalized health care for older adults, raised a $4.2 million seed round co-led by Afore Capital and Crossbeam Venture Partners, with Metrodora and Evan Moore also chiming in. More here.
Delphi, a one-year-old Miami startup that can create an AI chatbot that mimics a person's personality, manner of writing, or speaking style, raised a $2.7 million round led by Founders Fund, with additional capital supplied by Lux Capital, Xfund, MVP Ventures, and SaxeCap. VentureBeat has more here.
Firstcard, a three-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that offers college students financial products to help them build their credit, raised a $4.7 million seed round. Participants in the deal included AngelList Early Stage Quant Fund, CyberAgent Capital, East Venture, and Keisuke Honda. TechCrunch has more here.
Itana, a Nigerian startup that is looking to create a special free-trade zone for digital workers, raised a $2 million pre-seed round. Investors in the deal included Future Africa, LocalGlobe, Amplo, and previous investor Pronomos Capital (a Peter Thiel-backed fund). TechCrunch has more here.
Mentra, a four-year-old, Charlotte, N.C., startup that aims to match neurodivergent jobseekers (e.g. people with autism, ADHD, OCD, etc.) with ideal jobs, raised a $3.5 million seed round. Sam Altman's Hydrazine Capital, Verissimo, Full Circle, and the Charlotte Fund all invested. TechCrunch has more here.
MessageDesk, a startup based in Reno, Nev., that helps businesses and organizations text-enable their business phone lines, send mass text message broadcasts, and manage text message conversations across organizations, raised a $1.6 million seed round led by the Reno Seed Fund, with additional funds from AZ-VC, Acadian Capital Ventures, Arizona Tech Investors, Desert Angels, and Sierra Angels. More here.
pumpspotting, an eight-year-old startup based in Kittery, Me., that helps companies make it easier for women to breastfeed at work, raised a $2.2 million "Seed II" round co-led by Sincere Corporation and Maine Venture Fund; additional investors included Unum Business Ventures and Maine Technology Institute. The company has raised a total of $2.9 million. Femtech Insider has more here.
Pynt, an Israeli startup that helps developers and security professionals test their API security, raised a $6 million seed round led by Joule Ventures, with Dallas VC and Honeystone VC also investing. TechCrunch has more here.
Rig.dev, a Danish startup founded this year that has developed an open-source solution built on top of Kubernetes that helps developers build scalable backend and cloud infrastructure faster, raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round. Investors included byFounders, Dreamcraft, and NP-Hard Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
SaaSGrid, a San Francisco- and New York-based startup that has designed a dashboarding tool built specifically for SaaS companies, raised a $3.3 million seed round. Previous investor Craft Ventures was the deal lead. More here.
SimpleClosure, a startup founded this year and based in Santa Monica, Ca., that is building a platform to automate the company shut-down process, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round co-led by Vera Equity and Cambrian Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Worldover, a London startup that has fashioned a compliance platform for cosmetic products, raised ​​a $3.8 million seed round co-led by Index Ventures and Chalfen Ventures, with Entrepreneur First and Plug and Play Ventures also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.
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500 Global, the venture firm and seed accelerator, has closed on $143 million in capital commitments for what it claims is its largest Southeast Asia early-stage fund to date. TechCrunch has more here.
The Lisbon-based venture firm Apex has launched its new €50 million Elite Performance Fund, an athlete-driven fund focusing on investments in the sports, media, and entertainment sectors. LPs include sports stars such as Formula One McLaren driver Lando Norris, Scuderia Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, as well as football stars Raphaël Varane and Christian Eriksen and surfer Kanoa Igarashi. Tech.eu has more here.
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Venture-backed defense giant Anduril Industries is acquiring Blue Force Technologies, the advanced design and engineering firm behind the “Fury” unmanned fighter jet, as the company looks to build out its suite of autonomous systems for national security customers. The new acquisition positions Anduril to take advantage of what chief strategy officer Christian Brose called “the most important space with regard to autonomous aircraft.” Deal terms were not disclosed; TechCrunch has much more
here.
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Amer Sports, maker of Wilson tennis rackets and Salomon ski boots, has filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO that could value the group at as much as $10 billion, Bloomberg reported today. The company, which is backed by China’s largest athletic-apparel producer Anta Sports Products, also owns brands including Louisville Slugger baseball bats, Arc’teryx outdoor gear and Atomic winter equipment. More here.
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Glenn Borok has joined Jump Capital, the Chicago-based venture capital firm, as vice president. More here.
Elon Musk tapped SpaceX, the rocket maker he oversees as chief executive, for a $1 billion loan around the time he was acquiring the social-media company formerly known as Twitter, the WSJ reported earlier today. It noted that the "unusual loan is the latest example of how the world’s richest man has drummed up cash from his empire of companies without having to permanently part with shares."
Scott Phoenix, who was CEO of AI robotics startup Vicarious, which Alphabet acquired last year, is joining the San Francisco-based early-stage VC firm Fifty Years as a partner, he tells The Information.
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